The Children's Fairyland Jolly Trolly runs past the park's children's theater in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, July 15, 2010. Children's Fairyland opened in 1950 and was America's first storybook theme park.

Photo: Laura Morton, Special To The Chronicle

The Children's Fairyland Jolly Trolly runs past the park's...

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Children's Fairyland Executive Director Hirschfield peeks out of the "3 Little Pigs'" set in Fairyland in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, July 15, 2010. Children's Fairyland opened in 1950 and was America's first storybook theme park.

Photo: Laura Morton, Special To The Chronicle

Children's Fairyland Executive Director Hirschfield peeks out of...

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Crystal Tse. age 3, walks through the Alice in Wonderland Tunnel at Children's Fairyland in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, July 15, 2010. Children's Fairyland opened in 1950 and was America's first storybook theme park.

Photo: Laura Morton, Special To The Chronicle

Crystal Tse. age 3, walks through the Alice in Wonderland Tunnel at...

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Reanna Soltero, age 5, rides the Dragon Slide at Children's Fairyland in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, July 15, 2010. Children's Fairyland opened in 1950 and was America's first storybook theme park.

Photo: Laura Morton, Special To The Chronicle

Reanna Soltero, age 5, rides the Dragon Slide at Children's...

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Theo Scott (left), age 4, and Julian Scott, age 3, play in the Three Little Pigs set at Children's Fairyland in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, July 15, 2010. Children's Fairyland opened in 1950 and was America's first storybook theme park.

Photo: Laura Morton, Special To The Chronicle

Theo Scott (left), age 4, and Julian Scott, age 3, play in the...

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Children's Fairyland Executive Director C.J. Hirschfield shows off her collection of Fairyland Magic Keys in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, July 15, 2010. The keys are used to play recordings in the storybook sets.

Photo: Laura Morton, Special To The Chronicle

Children's Fairyland Executive Director C.J. Hirschfield shows off...

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Madeline Veehstra rides Alice's Wonder-Go-Round at Children's Fairyland in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, July 15, 2010. Children's Fairyland opened in 1950 and was America's first storybook theme park.

C.J. Hirschfield got the call from a friend in the police department a little before 11 p.m. on the night of the Johannes Mehserle BART shooting verdict. Protesters, some vandalizing local businesses, were headed in the direction of Children's Fairyland.

As the Fairyland executive director drove toward the nearly 60-year-old storybook-themed park for young children, her husband asked if she had a plan.

"One of our biggest sellers (in the gift shop) is a bubble sword ..." Hirschfield says, before getting serious. "I don't know what I would have done. I would have tried to talk them out of it. But I would have done something."

It's a fitting tribute to Fairyland, which was in danger of getting paved over in the 1990s, before undergoing a transformation in recent years. The throwback amusement park continues to survive, because people like Hirschfield have decided it's worth fighting for. In a city that attracts more negative media attention than positive, the whimsical one-of-a-kind Lake Merritt park has been a quiet success story.

"People will bend over backward for Fairyland," said Karl Osterloh, an Oakland contractor who brought his daughters to the park in the 1970s and has volunteered his services on several construction projects over the past decade. "Potential donors who wouldn't help out in other circumstances really respond. They say, 'I went there when I was a kid. I'll do whatever I can for you.' "

In an age of toys with digital brains and flashy amusement park rides, entering Fairyland can be like a time warp. The magic key your grandmother bought in the 1950s still fits the talking-storybook boxes. Willie the Whale and Oswald the bubble-blowing elf continue to greet families near the front entrance. Everything is kid-size, including the cartoonish houses, caverns and a pirate ship. (Look for the parents groaning as they stoop through tiny doorways.) Small children can run free - there's only one entrance - and for safety reasons, adults aren't allowed inside unless accompanied by a child.

Popular theaters

Arguably the centerpieces of Fairyland are the newly constructed children's theater on the southern end and the 54-year-old puppet theater to the north - which still uses marionettes that were costumed by Frank Oz's mother, and hosts the oldest continuously run puppet show in the nation.

Kathy Wanless brought her 5-year-old granddaughter to the park last week, happy about the $7 admission price. The Oakland-born Fairyland fan has been coming to the park for close to 50 years - as a child, with her daughter and now with a third generation.

"It's never been high tech, it's not loud, they're not blasting music and the kids can use their imagination," Wanless says. "For the admission charge, it's great. If you want smazz-matazz, pay $50 for Six Flags. ... I hope they keep it going for my great-grandchildren."

The prospects for Fairyland look better now than they did 15 years ago. The park was built in 1950 with $50,000 and the sweat of local residents - starting with Arthur Navlet, owner of a local garden center. With nursery rhyme themes and seals, monkeys and farm animals, it was a one-of-a-kind attraction. Walt Disney visited the park in the 1950s to get ideas ... and hired away Fairyland's executive director and puppeteer when he created Disneyland.

Children's Fairyland thrived for decades, until 1978, when Proposition 13 decimated the budget. A decade and a half later, the park was in deep disrepair. It was saved in 1994 when the Lake Merritt Breakfast Club, the business group that helped found the park, persuaded the city to let Fairyland become a nonprofit.

Osterloh says conditions improved immediately, then accelerated even more quickly after the 2002 arrival of Hirschfield, a hard-charging Fairyland lover, businesswoman, Oakland political insider and mother, who took a 75 percent pay cut from her cable-industry job to run the park. Her to-do list seems endless, but there's also a large pool of Oakland residents, businesses and other groups willing to step up.

"When I got here there was a sign that said, 'Old West Junction coming soon,' " says Hirschfield. "I said, 'Cool!' Then they told me that sign had been up for 20 years. They had the architectural drawings but no money."

Community help

Hirschfield found donors for the labor and materials, and now kids are playing in the Junction's ghost town with playhouses and a slide - all orbited by the Jolly Train, another original Fairyland attraction.

But her greatest talent may be recruiting employees who love the park as much as she does. Repairs have taken place quickly, while each visit to the park seems to reveal at least one structure with a new coat of paint. The dozens of trees on the park grounds are beautifully manicured - at no cost to Fairyland, thanks to a donation from PG&E and labor from 100 volunteer arborists. Flowers are blooming around every corner.

Stretching funds

Hirschfield says the staff has learned to stretch every dollar, whether they're recycling theater sets or buying thousands of twinkle lights at a deep discount after the holidays, knowing they'll be useful the next year.

"It's very Fairyland-ish. We use that phrase a lot here," Hirschfield says. "It's low-tech, but it's so sweet. ... In the midst of a (bad economy), our attendance is growing. It's because we're affordable, we're safe and we've been bringing the place back."

The children's theater, paid for in part by a recent bond measure, was completed in 2008, and the Bay Area Children's Theatre is currently performing "The Little Engine That Could" on weekends. The next big Fairyland project is its 60th anniversary weekend, Sept. 11-12, when several former personalities will return in costume. True to the Fairyland-ish way, the budget for the event is small, but the community has been coming through with a memory book that has been growing in the park's tiny post office.

"We don't have much money," Hirschfield says, "but we have a lot of stories."

The magic of the key

Children's Fairyland is filled with iconic sights, but nothing stirs up memories like the crown-shaped Magic Key.

It was the brainchild of Bruce Sedley, known as Skipper Sedley and Sir Sedley on his popular Bay Area children's television programs. He suggested giving children a "lifetime key" that would work in talking "story boxes" around the park. Sedley was a vocal promoter of the Fairyland Magic Key, which was copied at other parks and zoos around the country. (The television host would later help develop innovative magnetic key lock systems that became popular with hotels.)

The key has been released in dozens of colors, but has maintained the same design. A key bought in 1950 still works in 2010.

"The most commonly asked question: Does the key still work?" Fairyland Executive Director C.J. Hirshfield says. "Yes, it does. Forever and always. I'd be run out of town if it didn't."